In accordance with Article 62 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, States Parties to the Charter are required to submit every two years, a report on the legislative or other measures taken, with a view to giving effect to the rights and freedoms recognised and guaranteed by the Charter.

There have been some significant gains in recent months in the journey towards securing community forest rights in the Democratic Republic of Congo. On 2nd August 2014, the long-awaited community forestry decree (CFD) was finally signed by the Congolese Prime Minister. This was seen as a notable improvement to the land tenure and forest governance regime in the DRC. Civil society organisations, and indigenous and local communities had been waiting for the decree with high hopes since the Forest Code was adopted in 2002, paving the way for a new forest governance framework.*

Mutual recognition, mutual respect and mutual benefit are among the desirable attributes of all human relationships. Indigenous peoples and other forest peoples also expect these qualities in their relationships with others – be they governments, private corporations, NGOs or other indigenous peoples’ organisations and communities. This issue of Forest Peoples Programme’s E-Newsletter reports on the state of various relationships between forest peoples and different institutions – as these are forged, tested or broken –in the course of assertions for upholding basic human rights, social justice and solidarity.

Fifteen organisations working with indigenous women, including Forest Peoples Programme, have joined forces to emphasise the injustice and multiple forms of discrimination suffered by indigenous women in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (the Committee). States are required to submit reports to the Committee every four years, describing legislative, judicial, administrative or other measures they have adopted to implement the provisions of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (the Convention). The DRC’s report will be examined by the Committee on 11 July 2013 in the presence of a delegation of Congolese government representatives. The proceedings can be watched live online at: http://www.treatybodywebcast.org/.

As part of its project on ‘REDD financing, Human Rights and Economic Development for Sustainable Poverty Reduction of Forest Communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’ Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) and partners in the DRC: Actions pour les Droits, l’Environnement et la Vie (ADEV), le Centre d’Accompagnement des Autochtones Pygmées et Minoritaires Vulnérables (CAMV), le Cercle pour la Défense de l’Environnement (CEDEN) and le Réseau pour la Conservation et la Réhabilitation des Écosystèmes Forestiers (Réseau CREF) have developed a set of posters on the right to free, prior and informed consent (FPIC). By combining pictures and short pieces of text, the posters depict the stages of a process that respects the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities to free, prior and informed consent with regard to projects likely to affect their lands, territories and natural resources.